The release of Tora’s third studio album is upon us.

Set to bless our ears with their full-length project this Friday (September 3), the Byron Bay band has in the meantime been pumping out banger after banger ahead of their follow-up to 2019’s Can’t Buy The Mood. 

We’ve already had a taste of A Force Majeure with previous singles like ‘Inundated’ and ‘Call On Me,’ and while these have rightfully earned ‘bop’ status, the band’s most recent track is perhaps the bop-iest of them all. ‘Put Down Your Phone’ combines the talents of Tora’s multi-instrumentalist members for a funky-yet-chillwave take on romance in the digital age.

As is signature for the band, lush layerings and rich textures abound, and they’re brought to life yet again by Jo Loewenthal’s syrupy leading vocals. Speaking of the track, Tora said that ‘Put Down Your Phone’ started “as a joke that [they] would sing to people when they ignored me for their phones…eventually it turned into something serious and made its way into the studio.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZlZqdQEkn8

The accompanying music video speaks to Tora’s concerns about tech addiction, following a couple whose screen time is skyrocketing with hands permanently attached to the titular device. “Put down your phone for one minute,” Loewenthal sings as the band observes just out of frame, “so we can have a conversation.”

For an even more in-depth look at Tora’s latest track, we went behind the scenes of ‘Put Down Your Phone,’ and chatted with the band about their favourite moments on set. Get backstage access in the pics and captions below, and pre-order Tora’s third album, A Force Majeure here. 

Clappy clap, after 14 hours of shooting that sound starts to give you goose bumps.

Christian Baur doing what he does best!

The team making sure we are on schedule and timecoding for each scene.

An absolute weapon behind the lens, Tobias Paul is such a legend and somehow keeps going till he has all the shots.

Christian has the vision and knows how to achieve it.

Quick little stop between takes.

Put Down Your Phone.

It’s always so exciting working with this team, from the conception of the idea till the final product. It’s really satisfying.

These two are fire, the clip wouldn’t be possible without them. To be honest we are more of the extras in this clip.

Nothing gets passed Christian, always has his eyes on what is going on.